IN 1995 when the WTO was established, it seemed to be final confirmation of the success of a system that had managed multilateral trade relations since 1947. It provided an institutional framework within which governments were not only able to negotiate reductions in trade barriers but also to bind themselves to rules of conduct that, in principle, were both universal and nondiscriminatory. Abo...

Bilateral agreements signed or that entered into force between 1 January 2020 to 31 December 2021 and; Multilateral signed/acceded/ratified 2021.
 Please note: The information contained in this document reflects the records South African Treaty Register as at date of search, document, whichever is applicable. While every reasonable effort made ensure correctness herein, parties relying the...

Multilateral rule-making in the area of investment has a long and somewhat uneasy history. That history has gone hand in hand with the controversy surrounding the role of transnational corporations (TNCs) in host countries’ economic and political systems.34 The relationship between trade and investment has a similarly long and troubled pedigree. Suffice it to recall that the investment provisio...

Peer-assisted content distribution matches user demand for content with available supply at other peers in the network. Inspired by this supply-and-demand interpretation of the nature of content sharing, we employ price theory to study peer-assisted content distribution. In this approach, the market-clearing prices are those which exactly align supply and demand, and the system is studied throu...

Much attention has been paid to bilateral negotiation in which the dispute is between only two parties. However, automated multilateral negotiation in which more than two negotiating parties need to reach a joint agreement, has received relatively less attention, even though such negotiations are required in many circumstances (e.g. a group of managers making a joint decision for their company ...

Preferential trade agreements (PTAs) have become a popular tool for regional economic cooperation. While the WTO system is hard to coordinate between all of its 153 member countries, a PTA can function as the alternative policy that involves only a selected number of countries. Despite its popularity, however, many economists are still skeptical of the effectiveness of PTAs. Some argue that PTA...

1735 The major options for encouraging trade competition and banning anticompetitive practices are unlikely to have much of a downside for developing countries. Those that are most advantageous are likely to be opposed by special-interest groups in industrial countries. Summary findings Starting in the late 1980s, policymakers and academics began increasingly to call for the development of mult...